We were so fortunate to have had Eugene as our guide for the 3 days in Oaxaca. He answered all our questions about politics, the strong teachers union with a strike every year, local conditions and the water shortage. When he was a boy, the local river was 200' wide and once flooded into their house 2 blocks away, floating all the furniture out the doors and windows. We crossed over it yesterday and it is a 5' wide stream in the middle of this huge grassy bank. He says the water has really dried up over the past 28 years. He pays $23 per month for water which is supplied by the city and stored in a tank up on the roof. They have a wood grate on the shower floor over a tin catching pan. the water is then used for dishes, garden or to wash floors. Every drop is recycled. This is not potable water, they buy bottled water for drinking and cooking.
We put another 1/2 gallon of water in our radiator reservoir and off we went for another mountain day. We went through dry hills looking just like the Okanagon, pine trees, red clay, then white and up to 7960' to reach a long downgrade of 25 km. This was on the narrowest, twistiest roads with about 400 switchbacks. Jim and Adele lost their brakes and stopped halfway to recoup, Cecil and Nat both had flats and smoked down. This is Cecil on our lunch break using the winch on top of his bus to raise the flat after changing it. Loyola never made it out of town, had to be towed back to the campground. Went through a cactus forest, then chicken houses and cactus fields and green veggies in the valley when we got down. People peel the cactus and eat the 'green' in salads or as a vegetable.
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